Bummed you were unable to participate in this momentous occasion of disability rights history? You can still make history now.
There's an act proposed by Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio called the Supplemental Security Income Restoration Act. Social Security is seriously broken in this country. The max amount one can receive from SSI is seven hundred and seventy-one dollars a month, and you have a max asset limit of two thousand total. This is below the federal poverty levels, and with very few exceptions you cannot earn any money or even receive any as gifts without reporting it to SSI and risk docking your monthly payments. Even giftcards are dicey.
Also, people on SSI can't get married without losing their benefits. We can't even symbolically call someone our wife, husband, or partner without SSI penalizing us
It's enforced poverty. And it's an ordeal to even get on it, because as abysmal as it is it's the only option for people who cannot work. I believe the statistic is only one in ten will be approved first time applying (I believe legal blindness is an automatic approval). And it's nearly impossible to appeal or reapply without a lawyer. I was rejected three times before I had the resources to lawyer up, and I had to pay a third of my earnings. Also, when I first applied and was rejected in Indiana, I lost my life-saving Medicaid, thanks to a new law by then-governor mike pence, who enacted that only those on disability can receive Medicaid. I had had Hoosier Healthwise since I was a child and had been grandfathered in, but upon my inevitable rejection I was disqualified from Medicaid. I didn't get back on it until I moved to Maryland. I was never informed by the people helping me apply about the risk to my Medicaid.
Disabled and chronically ill people are never educated on our rights, resources, and what we can do for ourselves. My high school econ class would have been better served teaching us about Social Security (or even how to pay taxes) instead of telling my school where sixty percent of us were in poverty that our only way to success was in the stock market (during the Great Recession, no less). I didn't know anything about what I posted above until I was an adult and advocating for myself. Disability rights were never covered in Social Studies, and in fact in the years leading up to the Affordable Care Act, the right to medical coverage was forced to be a topic of debate in that class, as well as the right for wellfare. A good chunk of my classes genuinely argued against my right to have access to medical care.
Because of this lack of education, many people needing SSI have no knowledge or resources on how to find a lawyer, so they face the appeal in front of a judge alone and inevitably lose. Their only options then are to either give up, or try again and again and again.
But the legislation proposed by Sen. Sherrod Brown is called "Supplemental Security Income Restoration Act. Without linking (so it will show up in the reblogs), here's what the Washington Examiner says about it:
A coalition has begun pushing policymakers to update and simplify SSI. Changes they seek include:
raising cash benefits, at least to the poverty line;
updating asset limits of $2,000 ($3,000 for a couple) that have not budged since 1972 to at least $10,000 and $20,000, along with overly complex and strict income limits;
simplifying and “humanizing” SSI by easing or removing penalties for working and saving.
Not mentioned in the article, but I've heard from others in the Disability community that it will allow us to get married.
I know with disability and life long illness tend to have anxiety, I get it believe me, but now is the time to start making our presence known. We need to call our reps and let them know we exist, we're voters, and we need this legislation passed. If you know of any groups mobilizing for physical protests, join up with them and do as much as you are safely and physically able. (And if you know of any such groups in Baltimore, let me know).
Not only that but we call upon our allies to help us.
This is life saving legislation proposed to a government that largely doesn't care about our lives. So it's time for action. Let's raise hell like the disabled activists before us.
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